Gone are the days when a march, a rally or demonstration of 1 million people would make a difference to politicians, or when politicians would actually care when newspapers caught you in a lie or questioned your record or disputed the claims of a political ad.
That’s why, instead of being inspired by a message of a documentary, “In Your Hands,” about the 1982 million-strong march and rally at Central Park calling for nuclear freeze and disarmament, I was so depressed at this year’s Hiroshima Commemoration.
This event, jointly presented by Great Neck SANE/Peace Action and the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, has become an annual coming together of those who have remained true to peaceful conflict resolution, nuclear freeze and disarmament. It used to be held at Grace Avenue Park in Great Neck Plaza, but these past few years has been held at the Shelter Rock Universalist Unitarian Church, mainly because it is less weather-dependent. But lately, it seems to also have the aura of being an expression of hope and faith rather than real-world action.
And its message of banning the bomb to save the world has been enlarged to embracing policies to stop global warming to save the planet.
This centerpiece of this year’s event was the documentary by Robert Richter and Stanley Warnow about how a close to a million people marched and rallied at Central Park – still the biggest demonstration ever held – to demand a nuclear arms freeze.
What is amazing when you look back – and the message for today’s showing – was that it worked! Ronald Reagan, who was president at the time, was hell bent on a new foreign policy not merely based on mutually assured destruction but on a first-strike capability, noted Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman, who was at the demonstration then as a student, and has been a consistent supporter of the Hiroshima Commemoration for years. Reagan, he reminded us, was looking for new, more powerful nuclear weapons, a neutron bomb, escalating the nuclear arms race.
What was not mentioned was that George W. Bush further changed foreign policy to one of preemptive war – which he proceeded to apply to Iraq, where he used “the Mother of All bunker busting bombs” – ostensibly to kill Saddam Hussein, except that it missed four times. Oops.
In September 2002, Bush also wanted to build a new nuclear bomb production plant in Nevada and conducted “sub-critical nuclear tests” in the Nevada dessert in 2002 and 2004.
Nor was there any mention this Hiroshima Commemoration of the man who would be president, Republican Mitt Romney, whose pronouncements about foreign policy and defense spending recall the bellicosity and ignorance of the neocons who got us into Iraq (“no WMDs here!”) This should be no surprise – Romney’s foreign policy is dominated by the George W Bush neocons, John Bolton and Dan Senor.
The gathering was more critical of Obama, who was preemptively awarded a Nobel Peace Prize before he had succeeded in ending Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It always amazes me how progressives condemn Obama for failing to achieve the ideal when in the first place, he is dealing with a Republican-dominated Congress (even the Senate, which has been hobbled by Republican filibuster), second, Obama is a centrist not a progressive, and third, he has come darn close, certainly leagues closer than any Republican chief of state would.
Obama deserves credit for assisting Libyan rebels topple Qaddafi without the loss of American soldiers and with a truer international coalition (including the Arab League) than Bush ever had for the Iraq war. Indeed, the Arab Spring which has already seen changes in the Overlord in Egypt (relatively bloodlessly), Yemen, Tunisia, and other places, too, would never have happened with a George W Bush or a Mitt Romney in office, because Republicans are of the mind to prop up even ruthless dictators when it is in the interests of America’s entrenched, powerful interests including Big Oil, and because of the greater fear of the devil-you-know (and control) being replaced by an Islamist regime.
Obama has been truer to the democratic ideal of respecting the will of the people.
You can hear the faith, the optimism, in this group – smaller this year than previous years – who come together almost religiously to declare their allegiance to peace. So quaint.
It is also disconcerting to hear the same themes sounded today as were sounded in that 1982 documentary. Then as now, there is an appeal to reduce military spending and more on building up this nation’s education, infrastructure, health care. America already spends more than the combined military spending of the next 14 countries – they claim that 25 percent reduction, especially capitalizing on the “peace dividend” of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, should not be missed. Romney, on the other hand, wants to double down and not just rescind any cuts but increase military spending even more, so that it is at least 4 percent of GDP.
“The destruction of our earth for profit is rampant, and we ignore it at our peril,” said Shirley Romaine, who with Stan Romaine have been the stalwart leaders of SANE/Peace Action and fought the good fight for 45 years.
“For the past 67 years, in name of national security, the U.S. has spent trillions of dollars contaminating the air and water with radioactive waste and stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons, but it has not made us more secure.
“There are now 19,000 nuclear weapons in the world, hundreds are sitting on missiles, fueled and ready to go off within 15 minutes, on a hairline trigger… each of these weapons has 25 times the power of the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We are living in a time fraught with danger – and in our country,” Shirley Romaine said.
“Our call to action could not be more timely – power comes down to us, people, working for what we want to be our future, the future is our hands. We must recognize that people have power, and if you don’t use it, you lose it, and voting is power, writing is power, petitioning is power, lobbying, demonstration, thinking out of the box creatively, organizing is power – all things that we can do, and really we must.”
“The film ’In our Hands’ affirms the power of people to effect change,“ said Margaret Melkonian, who heads the Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives. “One million people marched to call for an end to war and a nuclear arms freeze – in that moment, we changed history, a moment that brought the US and Soviet Union back from the brink of nuclear catastrophe – brought about the end of the nuclear arms race between the United States and USSR, with historic treaties to reduce nuclear arsenals. Those people made it happen. Let us not forget, the important lesson now, that it was a moment built on other moments, other movements- college students door to door canvassing, Martin Luther King, held town meetings, gathered petitions, got localities to pass freeze resolutions…
“This movement in1982 was built on mobilizing people – to demonstrate, get arrested, to hold world leaders to account.
“30 years later, we still face nuclear danger from accidental or government action.” The so-called Club of 5 nuclear powers has increased to nine, with India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, and as long as there are nuclear weapons other countries – like Iran – will want to join that club.
We can’t bomb our way to nuclear nonprofliferation, we must agree to disarm,” she said. “The future is in our hands. It is time to remember what we did then, what we did these last 30 years. The future is in our hands, we need to transform and continue that work, from culture of violence to culture of peace.”
But consider the atmosphere in which this year’s conclave took place: Romney is clearly pushing for a military strike against Iran, whether by Israel (Go for it! We will support you!) or by the U.S. (taunting Obama for not taking more aggressive action).
In fact, Romney is pushing for a revival of the Cold War with the Russians. He has embraced a policy of bellicosity purely for political posturing such as his irresponsible comments designed to inflame the Israel-Palestinian issue. (Remember it is the Palestinian cause that continues to motivate jihadists). Romney also shows a complete ignorance of foreign policy – and not just what is happening behind the scenes by the actual President
We have hate groups running rampant, and one mass-murder after another, and somehow the inhibitions of political correctness – the pretense at respecting diversity, equal rights, gender equality – have been completely abandoned. And after each senseless, tragic killing – like at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin – gun sales go up as does the propaganda aimed at reducing, instead of tightening, gun control. Violence, not peace, is dominating American culture.
Changes in the nature of “media” and what constitutes “journalism” is one major reason why one million strong have no impact on politicians. More than half-a million at a time marched against the Iraq War multiple times, but it was as if they were invisible, as if these marches never happened or, if they were covered, were only equally as significant as a dozen pro-war demonstrators.
But the overarching reason why one million no longer matter is that they are overwhelmed by the 1 billion. That is, the 1 billion dollars raised from a few dozen billionaires and multi-millionaires, who the Roberts Supreme Court have decided are entitled to greater political speech – to prop up a candidate or tear down an opponent because they have more money.
Hofstra professor of history Michael D’Innocenzo, the keynote speaker this evening, spoke about the presidential debate that will be held at Hofstra, Oct. 16; the second of three debates, it will be in the form of a town hall. But will anyone ask a question regarding nuclear freeze and disarmament? Will the moderator or the press ever prod Romney on how he would handle the white-hot crises that are around the world? Romney is still picking a fight with Russia, trying to convey an image and take over the mantel of Ronald Reagan (a dog-whistle call to Republicans who might still be on the sidelines this election), and are invigorated by the prospect of a bullying style.
Pundits and the “press” have foisted this impression that the election is solely about the economy, and not foreign policy. But do you think soccer moms might care whether their kids will be sent off to yet another war? Do you think that blowing up billions of taxpayer dollars rather than investing billions of dollars in infrastructure might also be significant?
Romney’s rhetoric is absolutely frightening, when he talks about American Exceptionalism and military might, and instead of going forward with a plan simply to reduce the size of automatic annual increases to the military, wants to increase the increases, accusing Obama of weakening the nation. And it should send shivers to hear the way he romanticizes the “good ol’ days” of the 1960s. His campaign theme, “come back” is really “go backward.”
But you know what would make America stronger? Energy independence. Food and water security. Not having to spend billions on helping farmers recover from drought or towns recover from tornadoes or villages swept away by floods. Health security – knowing that a family can obtain health care for parents and children without going bankrupt. Clean air security. Freedom from fear that your child will be gunned down when you send them off to school or a movie.
Melkonian invited people to join a peace vigil on Oct. 16 at Hofstra, which is hosting the second of the three presidential debates.
Such a vigil might have impact on Obama. He has already has acted on nuclear nonproliferation and has funded efforts to secure the loose nukes in the former Soviet Union that could be obtained by terrorists. There would at least be the hope of the ideals that Great Neck SANE and Long Island Alternatives for Peace have worked for all these many years coming closer to fruition.
But you can also be assured that if Romney/Ryan are elected, we will have another cowboy administration that will take us back to Cold-War era-style arms race and brinkmanship. They’ve said as much in their campaign slogan, which will ignore even a force of one million people standing up to end nuclear weapons. Romney is no Reagan.
